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Managing Data and the Digital Revolution with Emerging Technologies

The scholarly publishing industry has experienced major shifts in the last few decades. Research journals have long captured the insights of scientific research, further fueling the work of other scientists. “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” Isaac Newton famously said, and scientific literature has been critical to making innovation and advancement possible. But the digital revolution changed everyone’s habits—including researchers. More people started wanting to access information online and read articles on their computers. The popularity of search engines, especially Google, transformed the way that people search for information. And all of this has driven a desire to be able to access knowledge immediately, from wherever you are.

Journal publishers had to be quick to meet this demand. Elsevier has led the charge, not only in making scholarly articles and reference books available online, but also in developing text mining and indexing to enhance users’ ability to locate information. Utilizing data analytics and developing ways to standardize and share the immense amount of data being generated are among the biggest challenges facing Elsevier and the industry. Increasingly, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are gaining importance in the industry as well. After hundreds of years of relying on printed materials, the very way we consume information is transforming wildly—and in a relatively short period of time.

Read this insightful Q&A with AI expert Jabe Wilson to learn more about how the scholarly publishing industry is using emerging technologies and what kinds of changes the future may hold.